Hidden Depths(4)

Her voice was cooler. “I’m not anybody’s, Mr. Reynolds.”

“Evan,” he snapped.

“Evan.” There was a long pause, with neither of them speaking. She finally asked, “Is there something I can do for you, Evan?”

“As a matter of fact, Miss Prentiss, there is. You can fuck me again.”

A long pause, then, “Where?”

Whatever Evan had expected, it wasn’t that. What was with this chick?

She dug into a side pocket of her skirt and extracted a crisp dollar bill, feeding it into the candy machine and tapping out a code that caused a bag of peanut M&M’s to fall from a hook inside the glass to the bottom bin. She reached through the swinging door to get her prize and nonchalantly ripped the little bag open, pouring some into her palm and bringing it delicately to her lips to eat them off.

He watched her chew and swallow as if she were performing some strip show for him again. And in his mind maybe she was. She had a long, white throat and he remembered how it felt as he flicked his thumb along its length. Like velvet.

“Well?” she said. “Was that a sincere proposition or were you just trying to offend me?”

“Both. Why? Was that a sincere ’where’?”

“Depends.”

She held the bag of candy toward him and he shook his head. If he kissed her now, she would taste like chocolate and he’d rather get his fix from her lips than from her hand. Shifting from one foot to the other, he calculated how best to get them the hell out of this hospital and back to somewhere with a bed. She crunched on a few more M&M’s and licked her lips.

Of course there were a lot of beds in a hospital. Maybe they should make do.

“Depends on what?”

She flashed him a warning look accompanied by a friendly over-his-shoulder greeting. “Hi, Vanny. Great minds think alike. Did you have the same idea I did?”

Quick sex? Evan glanced over his shoulder.

“I still have a few singles if you need one. I went for M&M’s, but there’s quite a selection here.”

Michael’s new girlfriend, Vanny Donald—a bizarre but beautiful sight in a rumpled bathrobe, her golden-blonde hair tumbling around her and one hand pressing a bandage to her temple as if that alone kept it on—suddenly joined them, smiling apologetically. “Oh no, I couldn’t eat a thing, chocolate or otherwise. Thanks, Andrea. But I came over because Michael’s been asking for you. Could you go in and see him? Something about some embassy or delegation or something. He can’t stop thinking about business for a minute.”

“Certainly, Vanny. It’s no problem at all.” Andrea Prentiss tossed her now-empty candy package into the waste dispenser and smiled that cool smile of hers. “It’s what I’m here for. I’ll go right in to him.”

And then she was gone before Evan could either shepherd her into an empty hospital room or sputter out the name of his hotel and pass her a key. He watched her go.

“She’s a trip, isn’t she? Now which one are you?”

Looking back to Vanny, he remembered his manners, holding his hand out automatically to shake hers. “I’m sorry. I’m Evan. I guess we didn’t get a chance to meet at the party and with everything going on here it didn’t seem like the time.”

Vanny shook his hand firmly, even though the rest of her looked a little shaky. She leaned against the candy machine. “Good to meet you, Evan. I’ll eventually get all the brothers straight. I’m an only child, though, so I guess it’ll be a challenge.”

Evan didn’t question her assumption that she would be around Michael long enough to need to know his family. Their father had dropped numerous clunky hints that this was the one for his oldest son. One look through the hospital room window at the hug Michael and Vanny shared when he finally came to left no doubt in Evan’s mind that for once his father was right on the subject of matrimony.

“Well, we’re not together as a family all that often, so it probably won’t come up too much.”

Vanny glanced toward the waiting room where, actually, they were all together for the second time in days. They had gathered at their father’s East Coast mansion for a party over the weekend to celebrate his sister Samantha’s marriage, but Evan had been too preoccupied with Miss Prentiss to appreciate the fact. He stayed in town longer than he had planned, stewing over whether to reach out to his surprising new hook-up.

And now here they all were again, brought together by the shocking news that Michael had been shot. At least the person responsible had been caught and was behind bars.

“I don’t know why you don’t hang out together more. You guys seem like a great family.”